When Change Borrows the Lexicon of Grief

A Week of Lethargy

I would hate to admit to being lethargic, but there could be no other word to explain it. Last week, when returning from London, I bought a piece of rump steak and a salad, with the view to having it for supper.

That never happened. Each day as I returned home thinking I might cook, I was simply too tired to be bothered, so in most cases, I went to bed on an empty stomach and only got up quite late to take my pills.

When it comes to food, I enjoy cooking, and there are times when I do crave something different, but I never immediately act to fulfil that craving. It sits on my mind for a while until it is either dismissed as exhausting or I am compelled to act.

Steak, Finally

After more than a week, I took the steak out of the fridge, marinated it, and rather than tossing it in oil in a frying pan, I left the cooking to the air fryer. Soon it was done, wrapped in foil for five minutes, before I put it on a plate and served it with the salad.

I probably did not recover the sense of satisfaction that had greeted my initial intention and purchase, but I am glad it did not end up in the bin through disuse and spoilage.

Shifting Ground

Then, as I navigated the issues that needlessly occupy the mind in uncomfortable ways, I attended an all-hands meeting that dwelt on the future of work. It was the kind of situation where you feel the ground shifting under you as if you were experiencing an earthquake.

I was able to link this to another experience where, as a sitting tenant, my apartment was sold to a provincial carpetbagger who probably should not have been speculating in my city. Considering not much had changed in my apartment for a decade, I was receiving demands to meet rates relative to the area without any corresponding changes to the commodity.

Loving where I live and my neighbours, I have made adjustments and accommodations, but there are limits to acquiescing before it becomes untenable. A recent posting in my village would suggest I am paying over the odds.

A Contract in Flux

The shifting sands metaphor also applies to work. The services contract between my employer and the client is changing such that the functions I perform will transfer to another service provider, whilst my employer assumes an overarching responsibility between the client and all the engaged service providers.

I think my employer is somewhat conflicted, because they would lose personnel engagement but acquire a broader first line support profile, along with that control and interface between the service providers and the client. The question is whether I am transferred to a new service provider or retained to function with other clients.

Grief Is Not a Career Change

For me, that meeting was rather depressing, and it was not helped by someone in a top managerial role trying to be a psychologist, addressing issues of fundamental change to career trajectories.

For someone who has studied and traversed the Five Stages of Grief with respect to two life-threatening episodes of cancer, the last thing I expected was to recognise those words adapted into a philosophy of change at work.

The intent was commendable, but I do not think due consideration was given to the effect such associations would have on the attendees. Changing jobs or having employment contracts change whilst retaining the same role can never equate to any stage of grief of the kind I had experienced.

It was almost as if she were having a laugh whilst trying to be empathetic and serious.

In the end, I was unimpressed and totally nonchalant, even as the burden of other concerns, including health challenges, became a lexicon of daily struggles seeking ascendancy over better stories and good living.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

AI is my proofreader

AI Helping Out

For the past four months, I have utilised AI to review, assess, and suggest new ideas after reading the blog. Its purpose is to make spelling and grammatical changes without changing the structure of the blog, if my voice is to be lost in the process.

The result of that activity is in this published blog - You Are the Boss

The bot or agent within the Poe app does the following, using Claude-Sonnet-4.5 as the AI modelling tool. Here is the link to my Blog-Reviewer-Editor. You can have a trial and let me know what you think.

The Bot Introduction

Blog Reviewer Editor Polisher - UK English

### What This Bot Does

This specialised assistant helps polish and refine blog posts whilst preserving your unique voice and writing style. It functions as a professional British English editor that grammatically reviews your content, corrects errors, and improves readability without losing the essence of your original work.

## Key Facilities

# Grammar and punctuation correction using British English conventions

# Flow and readability improvements through sentence restructuring and better transitions

# Section headings introduced to improve readability, where there are none in the text

# Style preservation, ensuring you still recognise your own voice and thought processes

# Comprehensive review summary explaining what changed and why

# Writing feedback offering insights on how to improve future posts

# Headline suggestions with reasoned recommendations

# Discourse analysis identifying potential debate angles and alternative perspectives

## Benefits

# Maintains your authentic voice whilst achieving professional polish

# Ensures consistent British English spelling and conventions throughout

# Eliminates grammar errors without over-editing or changing your message

# Improves clarity and comprehension for readers

# Provides educational feedback to develop your writing skills

# Saves time by handling technical editing whilst you focus on ideas

# Offers strategic insights for developing related content

## Considerations

# No em-dashes policy: The bot strictly avoids em-dashes, replacing them with alternative punctuation

# Context preservation: Edits prioritise maintaining your original meaning over stylistic perfection

# No new content: The bot won't add ideas not present in your original text

# British English only: All spelling and conventions follow British standards

# Voice over perfection: When in doubt, the bot chooses preserving your voice over technically 'perfect' alternatives

## Simply paste your blog post, and receive a polished version along with constructive feedback for continuous improvement.

Uses Claude-Sonnet-4.5, a model that is powered by Anthropic.

AI Review Summary

Changes Made and Why

1. Section headings added: I've introduced four section headings to guide readers through your narrative arc: arrival and gratitude, the measurements, waiting room observations, and the consultation itself.
2. Punctuation corrections:
• Changed "checkup" to "check-up" (British convention for this medical term)
• Added necessary commas for clarity ("In fact, her uniform...")
• Improved the flow of complex sentences with better comma placement
3. Spelling corrections:
• "practiced" → "practised" (British English for the verb form)
• "6-month" → "six-month" (convention to spell out numbers at the beginning of compound adjectives)
4. Sentence restructuring:
• Split overly long sentences where they impeded readability
• Used semicolons to balance related clauses (e.g., the worn shoe observation)
• Added em-dash replacements with commas and semicolons as per your guidelines
5. Minor word adjustments:
• "nurse phlebotomist" rather than "nurse at phlebotomist" for professional title accuracy
• Adjusted punctuation in the final sentence for better rhythm

Writing Insights

Your writing has a distinctive, observational quality that blends personal health concerns with social commentary. The shift from self-focused anxiety to broader observations about others shows good narrative awareness. However, some sentences tried to carry too much weight simultaneously, which occasionally obscured your points.

Areas for improvement:

• Watch for run-on sentences that pack multiple observations into one clause
• Consider whether comparative observations (like the nurse's weight) serve your narrative purpose or risk distracting from your main point
• Your philosophical asides are engaging, but ensure they're integrated smoothly rather than interrupting the flow

Subject and Discourse

This piece touches on several rich themes:

Healthcare experience: The patient-consultant relationship, medical autonomy, and the evolution of medical paternalism towards shared decision-making

Body image and health: Your self-consciousness about measurements alongside observations of healthcare workers' own health creates an interesting tension about who has authority over health

Potential debate lines:

• Medical autonomy vs medical expertise: When should patients override professional advice?
• The health of healthcare workers: Should there be fitness standards for medical professionals?
• Anxiety and medical appointments: How does anticipatory stress affect health readings?

Alternative angles to explore:

• The ten-year relationship with your consultant and what continuity of care means
• Why biannual check-ups matter for chronic condition management
• The irony of seeking health in institutions where health workers themselves struggle

Suggested Headlines

1. "You Are the Boss" - This quote captures the heart of your piece: medical autonomy and the evolving doctor-patient relationship. It's intriguing and invites readers in.
2. "Observations from the Waiting Room" - Emphasises your contemplative, observational style and the social commentary aspect of your writing.
3. "A Decade of Check-ups" - Highlights the long-term nature of your medical journey and suggests reflection and perspective.
4. "Grateful for Good Health" - Takes your closing sentiment and makes it the headline, creating a positive, reflective tone that frames the entire piece.
5. "The Daily Struggle for Health" - Uses your own phrase about the universal challenge of maintaining health, applicable to patients and healthcare workers alike.

Recommendation: I'd suggest "You Are the Boss" as your headline. It's memorable, creates intrigue, and captures the key moment of medical autonomy that seems central to your reflection. It also invites debate about patient rights and medical decision-making.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Getting inspiration from within

Look inside, not up

Writing is an art of spontaneity, one for which I have not planned much before I begin to type. As Laurence Sterne wrote in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, “I begin with writing the first sentence, and trusting to Almighty God for the second.”

Somewhere between the ceiling and heaven, I might look for inspiration, then I realise God lives in me. As with prayers, a Christian need not look to the hills from whence cometh the help of the Psalmist in the Old Testament (Psalm 121:1) when Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4).

We so easily forget the nearness of the divine already dwelling in us. Rather than using our inner ears and spirituality to listen and hear from the inexhaustible well of inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we look outward for a sign somewhere apart from us.

Just so connected

This is a blessing of connection that we miss because we do not tune in to the frequency of the spiritual radio that God has placed in us. Instead, we look to seemingly unintelligible and indecipherable data from extraterrestrial life forms of which we have barely any concept.

I can attest to the many times when the best ideas, insight, and inspiration have come from the quiet of meditation rather than from someone else. Sometimes, I step into the shower befuddled and step out enlightened.

Elsewhere in the Bible, we read, “For ‘who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). We have the mind of Christ, the Anointed One and His Anointing. That is just mind-blowing, a truth that has long escaped us, abandoned to the traditional hymn that suggests, “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” [Hymnal.net E675]

Use God’s library

Indeed, God is omnipotent and omniscient, and every wonder the hymn avers is an attribute of the divine. However, God is not hiding Himself from us, no, not at all.

Rather, He has made the library of His knowledge and wisdom available to us, indwelling our beings and giving us the Holy Spirit to teach us the truth, provide us with understanding, and guide us in all the vicissitudes of life. We are the most equipped for success in life, and we are totally oblivious to that gift.

From the basic things, such as beginning to write the first sentence, to the life-changing decisions of extreme consequence, we have the best resource that the universe has to offer. We can develop the ability to tap this resource by knowing we have it and affirming it from the Word of God, The Bible; His how-to manual.

Infertility does not impact being fertile

At peace with it

One of the side effects of this radical radiotherapy is infertility, she said, in our conversation about what to expect after treatment.

I had made peace with not having children long before chemotherapy zapped the reproductive capacity of spermatozoa 15 years ago. Until that saying about planting trees which suggests the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next best time to do that is now, for me, there is a limit to which bearing children should be discounted.

At ease with myself

My father was potty training my half-brother at 69 when I at 43 had made peace with the idea that I was 13 years beyond the time I would have found it a worthwhile experience to have children. I never even tried.

It was an advertisement on television that helped me settle this matter. A career woman talked of how she continued her education when her peers got married and raised families, and now, having achieved everything, she realised as the children of her old schoolmates were leaving university, she was just on ‘Incy, wincy spider,’ with her own child.

There was no point looking for that parenting boat, not only had it sailed away, it had docked at too many ports for me to swim out to sea to board it, I had better concentrate on being an uncle where I am allowed to be that to nieces and nephews.

Besides, my half-brothers could easily have been my sons, my father likely thought it was his responsibility apart from my brother to keep the name alive for posterity. You can never be too sure of the motivations for these things.

At these with life

Infertility is not an issue, and it happened because of a life-saving medical intervention. Indeed, people might be more concerned about sexual facility and function for pleasure than for reproductive purposes. The African man in me does not have a predilection for progeny.

In early 1990, I walked past the Cathedral Church of Christ in Lagos where a funeral had brought the most influential people in society to celebrate the life of a lady who had died childless, aged 93. What it brought to light was an inalienable fact, both the one with children and childless will be buried by children, who might not be yours. There is comfort in having lived a good life.

Infertility is not a disability that it becomes a state of mind, the world offers amazing ways to be fertile with imagination, ideas, insights, and inspiration to be just as impactful with the implements of our humanity.

Thinking of the wisdom of crowds

Lifted from the doorman’s view

It may now be the stuff of legend, but I cannot find the story I read some time ago about how lifts or elevators came to be built on the outside of buildings. Apparently, a prominent hotel planned to close for a long time to install elevators that required punching holes through existing floors, the construction debris rendering the hotel uninhabitable for the duration of the project.

The architects had their plans up and things were ready to go, which would have put the hotel staff out of work for months. One of the doormen heard of these plans and somewhat quipped about why they had to close the hotel and whether it was not possible to consider building the lift on the outside, thereby keeping most of the hotel business open for the duration of the said project.

From hearing to using

Someone who could influence things heard this suggestion and got the architects and designers to work on this idea which as the doorman suggested was a better way to keep the hotel going while the new lift was being installed. After the completion of the project, the outdoor lift became a draw for the clientele and the public alike.

The wisdom of crowds in a broader sense is not so much about the multitude of ideas that come in when a situation or problem is posed, but the ability to sift through the many viewpoints to see what is viable.

Some organisations get advantages out of this more than others in knowing how to pose the problem, managing the scope of those who can bring new perspectives and having the means to assess the viability through discovery, determination, development, design, deployment, and delightful.

The struggle toward delight

Delightful suggests that the outcome is beneficial, enjoyable, profitable, working, and could be improved upon with the knowledge and experience gained, and inspire to do other things.

Then again, the wisdom of crowds when not looked at pejoratively would mean one is open to new ideas by finding sources of new perspectives especially from those not steeped in the profession or expertise, in what might be both a new pair of eyes and ears brought into the conversation.

You have to wonder if you are afraid to see things differently and that your premises are challenged to the extent that you are persuaded to adopt a different stance or modify a concept to accommodate variance you had not heretofore considered. I think it is a healthy thing and where you find the opportunity to be involved in such a situation, engage it, embrace it, and learn from it.

Postscript: There are books and further academic and research work on The Wisdom of the Crowd, fallacies, crowdfunding, groupthink and so on, this blog is just a general viewpoint on some activity I was recently involved in.

Thought Picnic: Of the essence of dreams that cannot be filmed

They refuse to ride

There are times you want to reassess things that are presented before you like being at an amusement park and having a companion join you at the suggestion of the wildest, hairiest, and craziest ride in the park rather than being overwhelmed with excuses, doubts, and fears that underwhelm your sense of adventure.

In the same vein, there are opportunities and possibilities that look so far out, the much that you have contemplated about the achievable that at face value seems impossibly unattainable, you are met with opposition and repudiation, your judgement questioned, your sanity reviewed, as not one facet of belief, encouragement, or support presents towards your apparently crazy idea.

Expect all the opposition

The keenness of your vision is given a bludgeoning black eye as you reel at the stiff rejection, no one is even ready to consider the ride, in fact, they leave the amusement park altogether and you are left to consider if that visit is worth staying for, for the thrill that got you there in the first place, or you just yield to the counsel of the unpersuaded, probably never to attempt that adventurous inclination again.

You wonder about how to reach, believe, and work against the grain of the familiar and trusted acolytes to who you offer the honour of participation. You are known and they think that they do know and that is not immaterial. Yet, you know there are areas where uniquely different thoughts, purposes, insights, and goals have led you to experiences that needed a dash of exceptionalism that challenges received wisdom.

We rise with surprise

For that, I have considered that introspection with circumspection is a discipline of discretion, for all that is assumed, you know your own temperament and outlook, the things that feed your earnest and deepest desires without which you are doing much less than the best possible. Do the outwardly essential, but never lose sight of the dream that never gets screened on a public projection to an audience.

Blog - Walking in the dreams of your mind

That journey is usually not clearly mapped, and the destination is frequently misunderstood, but the arrival when told is a marvel to behold, as even you wonder how everything worked out so well. One can live in the mysteries of the unfathomable, we are sometimes within the grasp of it if we choose beyond the mundane and average. When there is no further place to fall, you rise.

End of work year 2021

Listen attentively first

It has been a wonderful work year with much to celebrate even if the challenges and the frustrations that seemed to greet one at many turns. The job of being a subject matter expert in a big team of long-staying members who are steeped in the traditions and culture of an organisation whilst being hardened by their experiences along with the histories that have defined their presence or absence of amenity to change can be interesting.

Someone like me is supposed to visit first with a good pair of listening ears and a fresh pair of eyes long before I have a compelling speech to review the long-held perspectives, persuading colleagues, partners and hierarchies of alternative methods and best practice. It is more a battle of wits than anything else, the encounters can be bruising, yet necessary.

Make your footing sure

My view is, I am engaged to challenge the orthodoxy, expose the dogmatic and align towards the pragmatic, shepherding change, not as a hard choice but a progressive march which is rarely at speed but at snail’s pace with the purpose of incremental and beneficial improvements that the managers can highlight as big successes.

Sometimes, I cannot get in edgeways, all arguments deployed, most debates exhausted, glaring evidence presented that it is literally incontrovertible, but the political climate will not budge a nanometre.

It is usually political

You begin to learn to choose your battles carefully, find where you can build agreement, move that towards a consensus, manage the compromises well, so the main thrust of your ideas are not lost, then bring forth the benefits and the gains whilst assertively debunking woolly thinking, needless experimentation and pointless solutions crafted from the poor use or knowledge of the tools available to fulfil the requirements.

This, I aver is the bane of being in a technical role at a high level, it is usually more political than technical, and it is where you have to master the art of communication. How to point out bad practice that it becomes a learning opportunity rather than it being taken negatively as criticism. Accord praise liberally and acknowledge fully ideas proposed and activities beautifully performed by others even if you wish you had that idea first.

Be dependable more than indispensable

Win confidence and trust, not so much to make yourself indispensable but valuable and dependable, this is what 33 years in the field of computer information technology has taught me, 26 of those years, I have mainly been a freelance consultant. I don’t get moved along like I am part of a glacier, I have to earn my place and prove my worth constantly through continuous learning and practice, education, excitement, enthusiasm, curiosity, and grit.

My work year 2021 is now over for me to go and deal with the essential matters of the heart. A stand-in has been invited to provide support to my standard of expertise and know-how, whilst I am away. I did not achieve everything I hoped I will in the organisation in the year past, but I think there is enough understanding that I can be helpful in matters of architecture, policy, implementation, and administration.

To the coalface of the work front, I wish you all a wonderful yuletide season and a more rewardingly, prosperous and fulfilling New Year, maybe, just maybe, we would also see the back of this global pandemic and launch into a new life of cherished experiences and exciting adventure. 

Hark! The bleeding obvious

What you already know

Unsurprisingly, I seem to be good at stating the bleeding obvious, usually by example or analogy, maybe crude raconteuring, though, not a skill I would even pretend I possess. As many who read my blog would already know, I am a believer in voices, everyone has a voice, and except if you are an impressionist, you will generally speak in your own voice, except if you are performing.

The ease with which we breath when not belaboured by stress or infirmity is done by our need for the oxygen that is taken from the air breathed in and the need to expel carbon dioxide as we breath out. The pace and rhythm are done and regulated by voluntary and involuntary functions mainly in ourselves except if ventilated.

Where you are already going

For those who journey, they plan a course to a destination, choose their mode of transport and might resourcefully adapt to all sorts of conditions, those they choose or are scheduled, rarely changing course except for distraction, deviation, disturbance or distress, which could within certain situations be ameliorated.

What is within our control we do with much diligence than we acquit ourselves for and when met with obstacles we sometimes find ourselves better prepared for eventualities than we ever thought ourselves equipped for. Invariably, much as we cruelly measure ourselves against unnecessary standards and outmoded goals, we may not be perfect, but we are usually good, quite good enough, yet let the perfect get in the way of the good, and produce nothing. That’s a shame.

For everyone can blog, they have amazing stories to tell, in their own voices, through their own breath, on their own journeys and within the controls they exercise that no one can upend. Need I say more?

Wearing earplugs to reason

We can no more talk

What have they been listening to or rather, who have they been listening to? That is the question consumed in incredulity that leaves me in bafflement when I am in conversation with some people, even friends.

In some instances, for the safety of our friendship, current affairs, if not ideas cannot become a topic of conversation because their minds have been made up, the sweetness to their ears has sealed the gateway of reason that it is both impervious and impermeable to any persuasion.

Forget pragmatism with dogmatism leading with a cacophony of fanatical tumult, you cross that bastion at great peril of the loss of composure to much more. A personality cult or a pulpit, some affectation even a sense of common purpose creates the affinity from which they can not and will not be extricated.

Where is the news?

I even had to self-censor that of the many other people I told about taking the vaccine, with the torrent of conspiracy theory channelled through them, I did not have the fight, I was resigned to my own fate because there are times you are made to question your sanity or rightness out of watching how they adhere to a narrative like it is the only gospel of salvation.

From those who shout the loudest whilst protesting about losing the freedom of expression when any opportunity of platform amplifies their views to the faux outrage that attends to shifts in cultural acceptance, we have found a different kind of mob with symbolic cudgels and cutlasses baying for blood and ready to lynch in the public square of clouded, corrupt, and stilted opinions founded on half-truths and falsehoods portrayed as the entirety of the picture, we are left with one fundamental problem.

“The problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as whether one finds it.” Joan Didion.

At all.

The Wizard of Bulawayo

In the flux of thought

Sometimes, someone thinks I am crazy, thoughts and words, the conversation develops from topic to topic exploring ideas and possibilities, I find myself in a stream of inspiration, a muse to arouse, a hint to follow, a leading you cannot resist the temptation to follow, rarely to an end but on the way to something interesting.

I did miss the sighting of the Star of Bethlehem last night, I saw another star that I persuaded some could be what none had seen before and it just happened to be big and brilliant, high up on a resplendently lit Christmas tree, that one lady what wonder what I had been smoking. I probably stopped smoking before she was born.

However, what I have finally realised is there is literally nothing Brian cannot do, that somewhere from the recesses of thought and exclamation, the only fitting appellation that springs sonorously to the lips is the Wizard of Bulawayo.

Constantly learning to improve oneself

Experience under review

When I tell people in my professional circle that I have been working with Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) since 1996 with version 1.1, it is neither to intimidate nor to show off, but I hope it comes with a sense of authority that I have an idea of what I am talking about. This knowledge has defined the majority of my professional career.

Experience is a good thing and the SMS we knew then has gone through many name changes and version iterations, features added on, deprecated, evolving and maybe even transmogrifying into a monster of client, user, device, application, and data management proportions.

It became System Center Configuration Manager which we termed SCCM that the professionals called ConfigMgr, then last year, the name changed to Endpoint Configuration Manager, but we have the acronym MEMCM to play with. No questions to that apart from the fact that our Microsoft development and support backchannels prefer it that way and on Twitter, that is the hashtag they will respond too. [Wikipedia: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager]

Exchanging ideas for improvement

We have a large and active community of administrators and architects who not only share ideas, solutions, and tips, we are also the best innovation resource for getting features implemented in the product, some of which I have contributed to going back over 15 years.

That I know how the product works does not mean I am the apostle of product functionality or technology, I am constantly looking for new ideas and perspectives, scenarios others have encountered that they have applied novel solutions to and shared with our community.

I have a test lab at home running on an extensive setup of virtual machines on which I try out ideas and gain conversance with the new features. Nothing works as good as having an issue at work and me logging on to my home network to check things out either to affirm or dispute issues.

Going back to the roots

Yet, more pertinently is the need for someone with my experience to find time to go back over the fundamentals, the first principles, or the essentials. It is important to never assume that the primers or introductions cannot contain new and useful information to help reinforce or finally, debunk a premise that was getting the prominence of gospel truth until the times and changes obviated that assertion.

For my weekend reading, I found a 346-page manual of how to setup MEMCM from scratch, I know a lot of it, and I and still learn much more, I am open to new knowledge that would give my expertise more heft. The job of learning never ends and like I sometimes say, that is a good thing.

Lost in the stewardship of expectations

Stewards on a ship of life

We are stewards, people with responsibilities to care for, employed to look after, appointed to supervise arrangements, engaged to manage or look after things.

In our stewardship, we cater to people and events, we put things in order, we manage resources and things, we ensure that arrangements follow some process or procedure.

Yet, stewardship can extend to the management of ideas, time, and expectations. The management of ideas which would come from a range of thoughts can inform decisions and direction, see one take up opportunities or even chart the course of destiny.

The management of time is one of first the awareness of its presence, the marshalling of things to fit schedules and procedures, maybe arrange meetings, even it might just be the plain knowledge of it for the purposes of punctuality which is the fundamental expression of consideration, courtesy, and respect to others. It is always appreciated.

The stewardship of expectations

The more nebulous one is the stewardship of expectations. Expectations are not usually set out clearly, as aims and goals to aspire to. People just expect that from influences, association, observation, education, or plain common sense, combined or discretely, that those of whom much is expected do not need to be addressed on the matter apart from receiving a commendation.

Yet, in the stewardship of expectations, many of us fall short, short of the goals we have set for ourselves or of the standards we are expected to demonstrate without direction, instruction, or tutelage. Falling short of expectations leads to disappointment and sometimes dents the structure of trust which could defeat the goals of enterprise.

We can fall and claw back up

Expectations, the many for which others harbour regret, for what could have been, if only other things were equal. Our imperfections laid bare before those we have not pleased, the promise we make to both ourselves and others to do better, sometimes without a clear knowledge of whether incapacity, indolence, or carelessness informed our plight. We could be more soulsearching and introspective.

In this, one should beware of becoming sanctimonious, for the danger of being consumed with hubris looms large. We as sinners seek sainthood that could be out of our grasp, but we strive on regardless. In our humanity is the salvation of the helpless. In our humility is the recognition of true remorse.

In the end, for the question asked in the measurement of expectations, nothing but honest answers will suffice, to vacillate is to infuriate. Matters will not be helped if we cannot candidly own up to our failings.

On your visit to Akinblog Hall

A journal of intent

There are very few people who are regular visitors to my blog and so readers of what I have been writing for 17 years. It is, however, important to state or maybe restate the purpose of my blog. It is a journal, not necessarily in the traditional sense of a leather-bound or a spiral-bound book with illegible handwriting.

I would not even pride myself into thinking some of what I write is even intelligible, I have simply put a somewhat personal diary in a public space. It is now the best record until a book is written of many aspects of my life, recollections, memories, expectations, plans, ideas, opinions, and much else. I hope it is kept alive by my survivors in some way or form.

Welcome to Akinblog Hall

One could even suggest a good deal is extemporaneous and developed in the process of writing. When I first thought of writing this blog, I imagined a palatial estate with expansive grounds, a large gate that opens unto a meandering drive that feasts the eyes with nature and the manmade, before you arrive at a big house or a small hut, as you are either overwhelmed or underwhelmed at what is before you.

The house is built to my specifications and taste, decorated for my comfort and situated to provide the best views of my entire. Visitors are attended to with the best hospitality can offer, a white-glove service, if you may. The hope is that guests have a memorable experience.

If occasion warrants it there will be a time to capture a visit in posterity, a picture in a frame to hang in the great hall and one you can take away as a keepsake. My house is also my home, in it I have the freedom to be myself without hindrance or prohibition.

Always guests, never prisoners

What I am saying is this, my blog will cover so many things including conversations I have had with people along with the crazy thoughts that are formed in the analysis of people, events, places, or things. Obviously, I will disguise personalities and sometimes find the form of words to address very personal issues, so they cannot be attributed to anyone in particular, when it can apply to everyone in general.

I apologise if you think anything I might have written is inadvertently about you, but if blogging is about how you see things and how you are affected by those things, it should be no surprise that this blog stays true to that concept. Returning to the idea of my blog as an estate, I receive guests and take no prisoners. Read it liberally, with an open mind, the way the words make sense to you might not be as intended, it is all without prejudice. Surely, I should not have to write an expository blog too.

Thought Picnic: The business of not becoming arboreal fish

When fins are not limbs

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This saying is usually attributed to Albert Einstein, but there is much controversy as to whether he ever said these words. Whilst it is important to responsibly source the provenance of a quote, we should not be distracted from the import of the uncredited aphorism.

There are times I have wasted my energy as a fish trying to climb a tree. I moderate and caution myself in how I represent myself, hoping not to use the negative to incapacitate my ability, just in case, I find the insight eventually to excel in an area where heretofore I could not begin to believe I had the means or wherewithal to have a voice.

Collapsing the plinths of adulation

Just over 6 months ago, I was contacted enthusiastically about a business proposition, that appeared to have scope and prospect even if the basic idea was in need of refinement. With me being looked upon as a leader, I immediately put aside my doubts, more personally about what I could do that I did not pose the essential questions to help refine the focus.

Strangely, I felt quite uncomfortable that demands would be made of me that would leave me exposed even as I did not want to disappoint my beloved interlocutor nor dampen their passion. As I was in the midst of planning some personal activities, I put the thoughts aside.

About a week ago, I saw that the sketchy ideas that were discussed had taken root and gained a vehicle of expression. This dream had become a reality and the next stage of marketing had begun, this is place where this person had all the expertise to carry a product to a market and begin to make a business that met a need.

Encourage creative expression

In trying to escape from the trite, I opined to another, “I'm glad you're getting to do what you love, nothing as fulfilling as doing things that are impactful; food leaves a memory and creates an enduring desire to relive the moment. It comes from the artistry and expertise that produces it in the first place.”

Someone who had taken the joy of cooking to the point of creating an online kitchen and fulfilling orders was having a time of their life, I could only be pleased for them. Yet, in me, there was that fish again attempting to climb a tree. I needed to provide encouragement without the use of clichés, recognise that what was being done was more than commendable and avoid allowing my sense of inadequacy get in the way of earned and deserved acknowledgement.

There are people who see us as sources of inspiration, living up to that kind reverence that we decline in self-deprecation and apparent lack of achievement in our own eyes presents a chasm between where we are placed and where we place ourselves. Our modesty becomes a refuge from the responsibility demanded of our counsel, guidance, and advice.

Not everyone can do business

Entrenching the accolades, I was offering, I averred, “It’s a journey you’ve started, and it will get better and more rewarding.” The process of setting up is hard, it takes a lot of perseverance to keep at it and make a success of it.

In the end, combining the separate events of two people taking their dreams to the market and working on growing their custom, I found I could still remain a fish, though not one trying to climb trees; just one that is naturally suited to its environment and thriving therein, a fish in freshwater, swimming in the abundance of life and resources.

“The spirit of business is an awesome thing, it's not something I have had much insight or acumen in, I am just a knowledge person. I think it takes amazing ability and talent to build a business around ideas meeting a need and I wish you the very best.”

Being an entrepreneur demands the skill, the drive and the expertise I have not realised currently I possess, my kind of fish is not striving to climb trees, yet, for everyone who had been able to take an idea to the place of selling a product growing in demand, you have found waters in which you can be the best fish you can ever be. Swim, live long and prosper.

Thought Picnic: In the days of useful ideas

Hour after hour

The days come and go, 24 hours ticking by with the concern whether much has been done or achieved. How minutes turn into hours as a perpetual movement of the ever-present that was the future in the last minute remains both the mundane and a mystery.

That passage of time is captured in the Today, the Thomas Carlyle poem that is also in the Anglican Hymnal, but I think I first heard it in primary school and that school in Bukuru, Jos was not religious at all. [Poetry Foundation - Today, Thomas Carlyle] [Hymnary – So here hath been dawning]

So here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Out of Eternity
This new Day is born;
Into Eternity,
At night, will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Slipping out of done

That is my enduring fear, the many days that I probably, possible, inadvertently, deliberately, or lazily allowed to slip useless away, with no ability to redeem my time apart from working in the hope that the newly allotted day from eternity slips into the eternal past with a mark of achievement and the fulfilment of purpose.

In my frail and errant humanity, other weaknesses emerge, desires I should tamp down, ambitions I should aerate and allow to find the winds of inspiration and determination to execute. I have been thinking lately where ideas come from, the wellspring of thoughts that can be used to change things, make things, see things, do things, to the benefit of both myself and humanity.

Growing ideas

I have toyed with the idea of returning to school, I have learnt a lot in a structured environment as well as build new networks for connections, projects and friendships. I need to read more accessing diverse topics to broaden the spectrum of my ideas landscape. Maybe, I try too hard when I should ease myself into a comfortable use of my mind.

There are no easy answers, but one thing I know is my honeymoon with procrastination must end, my dalliance with good intentions that rarely proceeds beyond that is unhealthy, I need to regain the joy of adventure in learning and practice, I yearn for a daily record of the useful with the knowledge that next would be better. Somewhere in there is both the joy of living and the inerrant pursuit of happiness.

Opinion: Resurrect your dead blogs

Dead blogs as Internet zombies

Sometimes I go checking on blogs I once read fervently and notice there has not been a newly written blog for years. It makes me wonder about when blogging seemed to be a trend and once the novelty wore off the interest in blogging died.

More so, I visit corporate and establishment websites with links to blogs that were enthusiastically written for a while and have had no recently new content. Now, apart from my personal blog that I have consistently contributed to for 15 years, I do have a professional blog that has had no new content for almost 5 years.

We all have stories to tell

The question then becomes, have we all run out of stories to write about? On a personal level, there is always an idea, an event, a circumstance or a personality engaging enough to write about along with having a perspective of things that can become a blog.

My view has always been, we are story people, we all have stories that can only be best told in our own voice, written in our own style and related uniquely from our own perspective. A blog is who you are, what you see, how you feel and the way you are affected or unaffected by that or other situations.

Blogging is easy, honestly

That means, there can be no reason not to have a blog in the first place and then keep it running as much as you could. There was a time when people religiously kept diaries and journals, captains of ships kept logs. The issue of documentation and record keeping is both for reference and posterity, removing dispute from ascertaining the facts as the reckoner has archived the situation.

Not that a blog is as formal as that. For where some have seen blogging as a means to a livelihood, mine is written out of interest, I have opinions and I write them down in a blog, I address social issues and those sometimes find resonance with other people, they begin and interaction that leads to a conversation.

Resurrect yourself in a blog

A blog does not have to be a serious endeavour of academic rigour, do your proofreading, do not dispense with the rules of grammar for the chosen language of communication and follow the common sense of a good seamstress making a skirt; make it short enough to keep the interest and long enough to cover the detail. I hope that analogy is relatable without appearing sexist.

As you read this, why did you stop blogging if you were once a blogger? The excuse that you haven’t the time for it would come across as lame; you can knock out a blog in less than 15 minutes and it does not have to be a treatise. Then the other question is, why are not blogging? That is, if you have never had a blog before, you cannot convincingly say you have no ideas, no opinions or no perspective of the things that surround your life.

There are too many blogging tombstones on the Internet on which we have written; Here lies the exhausted ideas of a person who once regaled us with stories that many once came here to read. Alas! You can resurrect your blog by posting one today.

Thought Picnic: The career skill of knowing chances, choices and risks

From before

I will like to continue on the blog I started yesterday on the response of Atul Gawande to the question about why he left the politics of being a policy wonk in the White House to return to medical school and take up surgery.

Blog – Thought Picnic: Becoming less dependent on the fortunes of others

“I wanted to be less dependent on the fortunes of others in making my own career; I wanted to be able to develop and voice my own ideas. And then there was this desire to have some skill besides just being at the abstract level of policy and work at that level. So I returned to medical school instead of taking up the offer to work on welfare reform.”

He went on to say about surgery, “I loved the sense of skill. And it reminded me of politics in some way – that the really good surgeons had to be like really good politicians in being willing to take chances, deal with risk, know that your knowledge and your skills are uncertain.”

Of skill to do

“There was this desire to have some skill besides just being at the abstract level of policy and work at that level…” Here, it is apparent that Atul Gawande had to make some serious life-changing and career-defining decisions. Whilst he did not knock the idea of being involved in policy making, he realised he needed to have other skills such that when the need for policy derived from his being dependent on the fortunes of others dried up, he will still be fully able to chart his own course.

It is also quite revealing for him to suggest that policy work was quite abstract rather than practical, even though policy has a way of affecting people’s lives. Yet, it was clear that if he had stayed, he still had ample opportunity within that political setting to be involved in welfare reform.

“I loved the sense of skill…” Yet, in leaving policy work for medical school and specialising in surgery, he had found a new vocation and calling, a sense of skill that went well beyond the abstract.

The excitement in the sense of skill is captured in his applying his acquired policy knowledge to his growing medical skill that he found ways to conflate politics and surgery in the following response.

Of chance and risk

“It reminded me of politics in some way – that the really good surgeons had to be like really good politicians in being willing to take chances, deal with risk, know that your knowledge and your skills are uncertain…” In essence, no knowledge in all his fields of endeavour was lost, rather the whole body of knowledge had become uniquely his own experience.

This experience is what now allowed him to understand the similarities between good politicians and good surgeons, and one might even say any profession where ability, skill, expertise and experience matters.

For we all have to be willing to take chances where there choices are not as obvious or the course is uncertain. In that, there is risk, some calculable and in other cases quite unquantifiable that is becomes somewhat adventurous, because from another viewpoint, noting ventured is nothing gained.

Knowing the uncertainty of skill

Many of us may be risk-averse, but without understanding risk and exploring the possibilities beyond what we know for certain, we risk living unproductive, mundane and boring lives with sadly unpromising careers to boot.

In all this is the ultimate lesson of knowledge and wisdom, that is to know what you know and what your skills can achieve whilst being very cognisant of the limitations of your knowledge and beyond attempting to bluff your way past issues where you have no ideas, you are geared to learn, to research, to reach and to extend yourself to acquire new knowledge and chart new courses.

The awareness of the fact that our skills even when well-honed might be uncertain to dealing with particular situations that we might have to adapt or withdraw to reflect and relearn is one of the greatest gifts of self-development.

My experience

Having worked in the Information Technology industry for about 28 years, I am well aware of the limitations of my skills, however, more importantly is the fact that I do not always have the answers or solutions to problems or challenges to hand.

In many cases, the knowledge to tackle an issue has only come from being presented with a particular situation that requires a resolution and since not all situations are the same, the solutions will differ.

Yet, all this knowledge becomes part of the body of knowledge uniquely mine that is a subset of my wider experience beyond just my profession and when presented with a similar set of circumstances again, I will probably be better equipped to provide a resolution much quicker than when I first encountered that setting.

I have never feared not knowing, nor have I been held back by not knowing what to do, rather, I have seen such challenges as new opportunities to broaden my knowledge and then return to resolve that conundrum, and doing the next thing. There is excitement is not remaining stagnant, but in pressing on and moving on.

These responses laid the ground for the beginning of the lecture on the subject – Why Do Doctors Fail? [PDF Transcript]

I hope to cover that lecture in some detail in another blog.